Harriet Andersson

Born: 14 February 1932
Where: Stockholm, Sweden

Discovered at age 20 by celebrated director Ingmar Bergman, Andersson became part of Bergman's regular stable of performers, in fact, he wrote Summer with Monika especially for her debut.

She began by performing in dance halls while still a teenager and at 18 she made her screen debut in Medan Staden Sover (While the City Sleeps).

Bergman cast her two years later using her coarse but sensual appeal to good effect in Summer with Monika. Andersson was featured in many of the director's early classics.

For Bergman, she was often the lower-class girl, as in her circus performer in Sawdust and Tinsel, or her maid Petra in the comic Smiles of a Summer Night.

Bergman elevated her somewhat as the schizophrenic in Through a Glass Darkly and the dying sister in Cries and Whispers but in their final screen collaboration Fanny and Alexander, Bergman had her back as a kitchen maid.

Despite the international attention Andersson received for her work with Bergman, it was her husband Jorn Donner who offered her more substantial roles. She received a Best Actress award from the 1964 Venice Film Festival as a married woman rediscovering the pleasures of sex and romance in Donner's To Love.

Andersson has made few international films. She made her English-language debut in Sidney Lumet's The Deadly Affair, but seemed more at ease working with her countrymen. Andersson has made a handful of Swedish TV-movies, and occasional stage appearances.

She played a sympathetic teacher in Beyond the Sky, followed by a role in the comedy Gossip, and in 2003 appeared in Danish director Lars von Trier's controversial Dogville.